


Our Hearts' Honeymoon

by lonelywalker



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ishmael <i>may</i> have left out an important detail or two from his most famous work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hearts' Honeymoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queeshmael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeshmael/gifts).



Some stories are not meant to be written, but to be lived. Still, in the months while the ships are away from Nantucket some stories need to be written to be believed. 

My discourse on the final voyage of the ill-fated _Pequod_ , its cursed captain and unfortunate crew has achieved some modicum of fame among whalers and those fascinated by all adventures at sea. I doubt that it has served as a warning to many, although perhaps some will at least refrain from chasing that great white whale with broken harpoons in its hide, which still drags a corpse with an ivory leg behind him on his travels. I have always been firm regarding the details of this story, both on the nature and anatomy of the whale and on Ahab’s quest for revenge, fantastical as it may seem. The evidence is plain to see: the destruction of the _Pequod_ and the dozens of crewmen who failed to return.

In one detail, though, I was persuaded to amend the truth.

As the apparent sole survivor of the crew, I should by rights be lauded and courted for my incredible good fortune. What better mascot for any whaling ship? But ill-luck is thought to follow me, and I have lost much of my longing for adventure. I am better served as a storyteller and a teacher, with stoves to warm me, fresh food to fill me, and a soft bed at night. But the one who traveled with me has a calling that has not yet been dulled.

We discussed the matter a few days after the _Rachel_ returned us to shore, via another ship heading back to dock. At first we did nothing but sleep, huddled together, dry now but unable to be warm, rousing only to eat the hottest chowder we could find. Our recovery was perhaps marked when we lay together once more as would husband and wife, our inner warmth renewed.

The coffin had been built for him, you see, and it called to him as I fear it one day will again. Together we clung to it without food or water, barely speaking, our free hands tightly grasping each other. Queequeg had lost his idol of Yojo, that well-intentioned little black god, but we both prayed to him nonetheless, begging for rescue and, more immediately, an absence of sharks.

We each received some little money from Captain Peleg out of pity for our many troubles, and even more drinks and dinners from those eager to hear our stories. But I began to leave Queequeg’s survival out of my tale. He sought no fame, nor that cursed reputation that would keep him from the sea, and to my white compatriots he seemed to look much like any other dark foreigner employed on a whaleboat. Through our hosts at the inn I heard of a position in a New Bedford schoolhouse, and took up residence in a boarding house – meals included. For weeks we lived there as a married couple on their honeymoon, I teaching children their letters by day, Queequeg whittling a new idol of Yojo while he waited for me. Yojo, after all, had not done us so badly on the whole, although Queequeg resolved to choose his ships by himself in the future.

And thus, yes, my companion went to sea again alone, although not destined to hunt whales this time. Queequeg might have had the stomach for it still, but he saw my fears, the same as those reflected in the faces of all wives and children left behind, and recruited himself to a small vessel belonging to an eccentric biology professor wishing to collect specimens. Queequeg’s harpoon was meant purely to ward off marauding sharks and other creatures in the event it was necessary. And every month he came back to me, still comes back to me.

“Queequeg,” I said on the morning following his most recent return. We had slept little the previous night and I ached more fiercely than I have since our rescue from the sea. “Why not sit with the children and learn your letters? They love you and one day you could read all my stories.”

He smiled as if to say that the question itself was beyond the silliness of infants, and told me how much he preferred me to read aloud, or simply talk while we drank tea or he smoked his pipe (a new one, acquired from a near-countryman he had happened upon in port). So during his time at home we do much as every other couple does, talking and joking, sharing our news, sharing our bodies, although he does not leave me pregnant as many sailors do to their wives on every visit home (I already have too many children to shepherd).

I am always at a loss when I bid him farewell before another voyage. Bidding him safety would be fruitless. As he has always told me, barring natural forces beyond any control, he will forever have business to finish here with me at home.

“We are married,” I tell him, bowing my forehead to meet his, “and I would gladly die for you if need be.”

We embrace and he leaves, and I leave too, back to my room and my schoolhouse where I – and little Yojo – wait eagerly for his safe return.


End file.
